


July Fourth, On the Water

by elle_stone



Series: Tumblr Requests [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/M, Fourth of July
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/elle_stone
Summary: "Okay, Bell, tell the truth,” Octavia deadpans. “Do you actually like this girl or is she just an excuse to get invited into paradise?"He rolls his eyes, crosses his arms tight against his chest. "Come on, O, you know me better than that. This is hell."Or: Bellamy finds it nearly impossible to get even thirty seconds alone with his girlfriend at her Fourth of July party.





	July Fourth, On the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Kiss me, quick!" requested by anonymous on tumblr.

Clarke Griffin is the first rich person Bellamy has ever known. The first really, truly **_rich_** person. Wealthy enough not just to throw a big Fourth of July party but to rent out a waterfront palace just for the event, and stuff it full of possibly every person she's ever met.

Bellamy and Octavia stand at the bottom of the steps, heads tilted back to take in all three stories and the wraparound porch, their eyes wide.

"Okay, Bell, tell the truth,” Octavia deadpans. “Do you actually like this girl or is she just an excuse to get invited into paradise?"

He rolls his eyes, crosses his arms tight against his chest. "Come on, O, you know me better than that. This isn't paradise. This is hell."

*

Like hell, the party is hot, loud, and crowded. Many of the invitees have moved out onto the porch, or down the front steps, or all the way to the sloping front lawn or the dock, but a surprising number have decided the inside is still the place to be. This, even though it's impossible to take more than two steps without bumping into someone and the bass beat thumping from the stereo system is more of a feeling deep in the bones than a sound. Bellamy loses Octavia within five minutes, which is disconcerting. He doesn't like the idea of her being swallowed up by the many-headed-monster that is the Griffin Independence Day Party Guest List. But even worse is the sense that he himself may be swallowed up.

He tries to make his way to the edge of the room, where there's a little more breathing space. By the time he makes it there he is covered in stranger sweat.

He hates stranger sweat.

While forcing his way through the crowd, he'd held on to the idea that perhaps, from a better vantage point, he might be able to catch sight of the hostess, but he sees his critical error now. He's on the low-ground. He should have gone in the other direction, toward the stairs, which would at least give him a view of the main hallway and a bit of the living room. Calling or texting her won't do any good, either. She already showed him the dress she'll be wearing—a deep blue number that brings out her eyes, slinky and clinging, enough to put some very ungentlemanly thoughts in his head—and he knows there's no way she could be carrying a phone on her.

He's steeling himself to shove through the crowd again, maybe near the perimeter this time, where the going's a bit easier, when he hears his name called out from somewhere in the belly of the beast.

And a hand, coming up to the surface, waving.

"Bellamy! Hey, you made it!"

Just the sound of Clarke's voice lifts his heart and his spirits. But before he can do much more than call her name in return, some anonymous party guest grabs her attention from the other side. She gestures vaguely back to Bellamy, a sign he doesn't understand, and then she's turned away from him again, and is gone.

*

Eventually, he grabs himself some red-white-and-blue punch and carries it, somehow, safely through the crowd and to the porch. At least once he’s outside, he can breathe. Most of the other party goers are already engaged in conversation, but he manages to make the acquaintance of another grumpy loner, Clarke's neighbor and the son of the local police chief, who's willing to trade stories of side jobs gone awry while they both pretend there aren't obnoxious couples out there too, dancing just a bit too close.

Bellamy really wishes they'd keep the dancing inside, where it belongs. But Griffin parties apparently have no rules.

He's half-given up on ever actually finding his girlfriend _at her own event_ when a splash of blonde appears at the edge of his vision. He turns, fast, half of him tense with expectation and the other half already self-mocking, sure the hint of blonde will turn out to be only another stranger, yet again. It seems inevitable that he’d jump to talk to the first random woman with any resemblance at all to Clarke. It’s just the sort of awkward, embarrassing thing he’d do. And yet—this time, for once—it’s her. It really _is_ her, shocking blue dress and all.

"Hey—hey, Clarke—" He reaches out for her arm, his new friend all but forgotten, and just manages to graze his fingertips against her elbow as she reaches the top of the stairs. She turns. Confused for a half-second, she sees his face and instantly grins.

"Bellamy! I thought you were still inside!"

She's started to turn and walk back toward him, when someone down closer to the water yells, "Fireworks!", and triggers a small stampede. Bellamy tries to move forward with the crowd, and Clarke to move backward against the wave, but it's already too late.

"It's not even _time_ for the fireworks yet!" he hears her shout, just barely, before she's swept away from him again, harried and cross, only the echo of the moment her fingers grabbed his wrist to remind him that he'd even crossed paths with her at all.

*

The crowd at the waterfront dissipates within minutes, once they realize that the fireworks alarm was just a hoax. Or perhaps just some well-meaning confusion, though it works out the same either way. Another party further down the lake has apparently started setting off their own explosives, but they're around the bend and all but invisible from the Griffins' property. Bellamy can hear them, though, loud cannon booms and spirited crackles of sound blasting out, then fading into the summer night. From the dock, these echoes are louder than the bass boom from the house, and for the first time all evening, he actually feels calm.

He's not so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't hear the footsteps behind him, but he pretends not to notice the slap of sole to wood or the slight sway of the dock beneath him until whoever it is—he knows exactly who it is—is standing right next to him.

"This seat taken?" she asks.

He laughs under his breath. It's exactly the lame opening line he would have used.

"No, go ahead," he answers, glancing up so he can watch her as she lowers herself down next to him and sinks her feet down into the water. She's holding her blue platform sandals in one hand, a Solo cup of punch in the other.

For a moment, Bellamy just looks at her. Rich hostess Clarke Griffin. Her fancy hairdo undone, her expression tired and worn, a sheen of drying sweat across her cheekbones. The most beautiful woman he's ever seen.

She throws her shoes over her shoulder so they clatter on the dock and lets her shoulders slump, like she almost never does, and stares out at the water, which is dark almost to blackness and shining with the reflection of moon and stars.

"Bellamy—"

"Clarke, stop." He glances to the right and left, like he's watching out for spies, imminent dangers from the depths, then catches her eye again. "Just kiss me."

"What—?"

"Kiss me," he insists, "quick. Before you say anything else."

Her brow's furrowed like she can't begin to understand what he means, but still she only sighs a put-upon, long-suffering sigh and leans in.

The kiss starts out only a gentle, quick meeting of lips against lips, but when Bellamy draws her closer with an arm around her waist, she melts, melts so easily and so completely that he knows she's been waiting for this all night, just like he has. She scrambles to set her plastic cup of punch somewhere safely out of their way and then, the twist of their bodies still awkward, their bare feet splashing in the water as they shift and move, they're both grabbing at each other, letting out a whole night’s worth of frustration and need.

"What—was that?" Clarke manages, at last, as they pull back finally for air. Her nose bumps against his nose. She's smiling, a smile as soft and quiet as her voice, as the way she kisses him again before he can speak.

"It was a kiss."

"Very funny, Bellamy. I mean, why so…?"

"I needed to make sure I got one kiss out of this night, at least." He nuzzles closer, nose and lips and cheek brushing against cheek and jaw and lips. "Before someone pulls you away again."

"Trust me, no one will—"

"FIREWORKS!"

Bellamy rolls his eyes as the shout echoes out through the night, not surprised at all as it’s followed by another rush of feet, thumping down the porch steps, down the lawn. A crowd of people dispersing, gathering again, crowding against each other, approaching, invading. No false alarm this time.

He hears another deep boom, this time right above him, then a high-pitched whistle, and a spark of sound and light as red, white, and blue firecrackers break across the sky. He half-turns to look up at them. But he doesn't let go of Clarke and she doesn't let go of him either, just turns so she's safely tucked against his side. Her arm loops around his waist and his around her shoulder. Feet slip against feet under the water.

"Trust me," she says again. "No one and nothing else is coming between you and me tonight."

**Author's Note:**

> I am also on [tumblr](http://kinetic-elaboration.tumblr.com/), where I reblog stuff, talk about writing, and take fic requests.


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